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'The core of this impressive study of Rashid al-Din's oeuvre is the minute analysis of the manuscript witnesses of his celebrated "world history" and the stages through which the author's writing of history and sense of himself evolved, requiring a radical revision of most previous studies of Mongol-era historiography.'
Charles Melville, Pembroke College, Cambridge
Explores Rashid al-Din's impact on seven centuries of historical writing
This book examines the life and work of Rashid al-Din Tabib (d. 1318), the most powerful statesman working for the Mongol Ilkhans in the Middle East. It begins with an overview of administrative history and historiography in the early Ilkhanate, culminating with Rashid al-Din's Blessed History of Ghazan, the indispensable source for Mongol and Ilkhanid history. Later chapters lay out the results of the most comprehensive study to date of the manuscripts of Rashid al-Din's historical writing. The complicated relationship between Rashid al-Din's historical and theological writings is also explored, as well as his appropriation of the work of his contemporary historian, `Abd Allah Qashani.
Key Features
. A narrative of early Ilkhanid history accessible to students and useful to scholars
. A new approach to the biography of one of the most influential figures in medieval Islamic history
. Includes appendices describing the structure, sources and illustrative programs of the Jami¿ al-Tawarikh and cataloguing all known manuscripts of the work
. Shows the relationship between early modern Persian and modern European structures of knowledge about the Mongol world
Stefan Kamola is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Connecticut State University.
List of contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Mongols in a Muslim world, 1218-1280
Chapter 2. The likely course of an unlikely life, 1248-1302
Chapter 3. Mongol dynastic history, 1302-1304
Chapter 4. New projects of faith and power, 1304-1312
Chapter 5. Remaking Mongol history, 1307-1313
Chapter 6. Creating the image of Rashid al-Din, 1312-1335
Epilogue. Rashid al-Din at the court of Shahrokh
Appendix A. The
Collected Histories and its illustrations
Appendix B. A descriptive catalogue of manuscripts of the
Collected Histories Bibliography
About the author
Stefan Kamola is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Connecticut State University. He received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington in 2013 and then spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at the Princeton Society of Fellows. Stefan has published an article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and a chapter in Sussan Babaie, ed., Iran After the Mongols. The Idea of Iran, Volume VIII (I.B. Tauris, 2019)
Summary
This book examines the life and work of Rashid al-Din Tabib (d. 1318), the most powerful statesman working for the Mongol Ilkhans in the Middle East.
